


A Proper Little Girl

by TheNightsQueen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fem!Harry, Genderbend, Harriet Potter - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2020-12-01 23:39:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20936738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNightsQueen/pseuds/TheNightsQueen
Summary: How would Harry have grown up as a girl? Abuse is an odd thing. It plays tricks on the abuser and punishes the abused. Gender may have affected Harry Potter’s upbringing, but bitterness and blame and disgust only change in appearance, the root is still the same.Or, snapshots into the life of Harriet Potter. Not necessarily in order, but all part of the same story.





	1. The Beginning: Part One

Mr and Mrs Dursley of number four Privet Drive were perfectly normal, thank you very much. In fact, they were a little bit better than normal, they were charitable. For everyone knew they had taken in their niece when she had been a year old. A small and quiet girl who everyone took to be shy and positively exuding what they would refer to as ‘proper upbringing’.

Harriet Potter always stood up straight. Her long black hair was always forced into a neat plait, pinned (rather painfully Harriet might add) in many places. Her dresses never had a speck of dirt on them and her shoes were beautifully polished. Her bronzed skin and bright green eyes made many comment on what an ‘exotic beauty’ she would grow to be. How peculiar the combination was, and how when the young girl would smile just so, she looked more like a doll than a girl.

Mums on the playground would glance jealously at Petunia when Harriet came out of school. Their own little girls had dirt on their skirts, had pulled their hair out of its confines and probably given themselves nits, their socks had slipped down from their knees and they didn’t care to pull them back up again. Harriet looked just as pristine coming out of school as she did in the mornings, and the other parents couldn’t for the life of them understand how.

Some days, Harriet felt more doll than girl.

The cupboard under the stairs at number four was very familiar to Harriet Potter. Not because she slept there, but because that was where the sewing machine and the ironing board were kept.

Her days started at 5:30 in the morning in the smallest bedroom in Privet Drive. It was pale pink and white, it looked more like a room out of a show house for a posh catalogue than an actual childs bedroom. Aunt Petunia had gotten her an alarm clock with a ballerina on it. It’s twinkling music and mocking spins started up every single morning, weekend or not. She rose and showered every morning, dressing herself and leaving her towel round her shoulders as she went downstairs, sitting at the kitchen table for the next half an hour as Aunt Petunia pulled at her hair roughly with a comb, forcing it into its plait for the day and pinning down every strand of hair that refused to obey her.

Harriet learned not to complain as the comb pulled at her scalp, or not to wince when a new hairpin was jammed into her hair painfully. Proper little girls didn’t cry, they didn’t shout, and they certainly didn’t wriggle while someone was doing their hair.

Next on the agenda was ironing Uncle Vernon’s work shirts, he liked them done crisp and neat in the mornings, unlike hers and Dudley’s school uniforms, which were to be done every evening instead. Harriet was always careful with this. She had learned after one too many times burning herself on the iron. That always got her a stern talking to from Aunt Petunia, proper girls did not have marks up their hands. Proper girls were careful.

Breakfast was next. Petunia would go and wake Uncle Vernon and Dudley while Harriet put an apron over her uniform and made eggs and toast. Proper girls knew how to cook.

Fortunately, Dudley was usually late enough down that they would be sent off to walk to school before she could be asked to do the washing up as well. It wouldn’t’ do to be late after all.

Her handwriting was the neatest in the class, all loopy and joined up before the rest of her class had even thought about learning cursive. Aunt Petunia had taught her, and when Harriet asked why she had to have cursive when Dudley didn’t, her aunt just sniffed and reminded her that it was the proper way for a girl to write, and that proper girls did not ask questions.

At dinner, her portion was half of what Dudley’s was. Her Uncle nodded approvingly and said gruffly about how not enough young girls watched their intake, and it showed as they grew up. Dudley was a growing boy after all. They never seemed to give much thought to Harriet needing to grow too.

Harriet was not hidden away at dinner parties, she would sit, perfectly poised at the table drinking her tea the way Aunt Petunia had taught her.

Not a single part of this was _fun. _Harriet’s green eyes jealously followed the other girls on the playground as they ran around with reckless abandon. She hated the way her hand cramped when she was writing in cursive, because god forbid any of her schoolwork was sent home to her Aunt and Uncle and it wasn’t perfectly neat. She felt tired at getting up so early, and hungry most of the time. Sometimes, if Harriet had got dirt on her blouse, or scuffed her shoes, or pulled her hair out, she didn’t get dinner at all. Which she thought was mightily unfair, but if she said this she would simply be sent to bed too. Her door locked from the outside, which confused her sometimes. It was almost as though her aunt and uncle were afraid of her. 

But that was silly. She was just a girl, after all. Something they loved to remind her all too often.

This was to say nothing of the odd occurrences that happened around her, something the Dursleys always buried under ‘perfectly normal’ explanations, stiff expressions, and another lecture from them about ‘ladylike’ behaviour.

As if Harriet could have done anything about it! None of the incidents were her fault. Not one.

The first one was she could remember was back when she was six. Aunt Petunia had just started making her wake up even earlier than it took to braid her hair, so she could start doing Uncle Vernon’s ironing.

Dudley was teasing her all the way to school about her being just like Cinderella, the poor and stupid slave who always had to do all the housework.

“What would that make you? The ugly stepsister?” She had asked, her tone a perfect portrayal of innocence, and it had even taken Dudley a minute to register that she had insulted him at all.

“I’m not a stupid_ girl_.” He had sneered.

“Why do you look like one then?” She had asked simply as Dudley’s hair started growing down past his ears. It well on its way to his shoulders as he ran back home crying for his mum. Harriet had continued to school; it didn’t do for a young girl to be late after all.

Aunt Petunia had put it down to not cutting Dudley’s hair often enough, and got the clippers out that morning, and Dudley was back at school by lunchtime. Harriet was never outright scolded for this, but her dinner that night consisted solely of an apple, and she was sent to bed early, before it was even dark.

Another time, Harriet had refused to join in with their art class at school, they were using paints and god forbid she get a single stain on her blouse or get any under her nails. Aunt Petunia would shriek. She sat in the corner reading a book and some of the other girls in her class thought it would be funny to throw blue paint on her. It had landed clearly across Harriet’s chest and the young girl let out a huge scream of fury, and the next second the girl who had thrown the paint was almost entirely blue, and Harriet’s blouse miraculously clean. As she had been sitting so far away, her Aunt and Uncle were never told about this, as it couldn’t have been her, could it?

The twinkling tune of the ballerina alarm clock was accompanied by a crisp knock at her door by aunt Petunia that morning.

“Why aren’t you up yet?” She asked brusquely, setting a clean pile of washing at the end of Harriet’s bed.

“Huh?” she asked blearily, pushing sleep from her eyes with a clumsy finger as she tried to recall the dream she had been having, it had been a good one. Exciting. She was quite sure there had been a flying motorcycle involved. She thought she might have had dreams of motorcycles before, but this one had definitely been flying.

Aunt Petunia tutted, her hands on her hips, an image far too familiar for Harriet’s liking. “Get a move on, it’s Dudley’s birthday, so breakfast has to be perfect.”

Harriet stifled a groan, how could she have forgotten! Of course it was Dudley’s birthday, they were going to the zoo, and Harriet would have to endure a whole day of Dudley’s scrawny friend Piers, who had a face like a rat if you asked Harriet (nobody did), pulling at her hair and generally making a nuisance of himself in front of her, while all the grownups cooed over ‘puppy love’, and ‘oh aren’t they just so cute together’.

It was a form of torture, that Harriet was sure of, but again, nobody ever asked her.

“Come on, and put on that dress Aunt Marge brought you for Christmas.” Aunt Petunia told her sternly. “And remember your contacts, those glasses are for night time only.”

“Not the blue one?” she all but groaned.

“Yes.” Petunia said stiffly. “It’s a lovely dress, and today is going to be perfect.” She said again before sweeping from the room, leaving no room for arguments.

Harriet threw her head back to her pillow, absolutely dreading the day, the dress was ‘lovely’ if it was being worn by a five-year-old who had perfect blonde hair and pale skin. It was a shade of blue that just looked odd against Harriet’s browned skin, and clashed horribly with her green eyes. It didn’t have any sleeves, and the skirt was just a little bit puffy, something that she felt far too grown up for at ten-but-actually-nearly-eleven years old. It made her feel silly, but Aunt Petunia had told her to, so, she begrudgingly started her day.

“Don’t get grease on your dress.” Uncle Vernon barked from behind the paper in lieu of a proper greeting as Harriet stepped into the kitchen, starting the breakfast before grabbing the apron from the back of the door.

This was particularly difficult this morning as she had to navigate around all of Dudley’s presents. It looked like he had gotten the new computer he wanted, plus a new television and a brand new racing bike. It drove Harriet nuts, he got piles upon piles of presents every year, when Harriet got exactly the same. A new dress that she thought Petunia had picked out based on exactly what she would hate the most, and a new hairbrush, as her hair was so wild she ‘went through hairbrushes the same way most people go through shoes’, as her uncle put it. She would be expected to wear the dress to their annual visit to Aunt Marges house, as it always coincided with her birthday each year. She would critique her on everything from her hair to her shoes, and make sure to buy an equally hideous, but perfectly opposite dress for her the following Christmas. Harriet was sure that was just to get ‘one up’ on Aunt Petunia, but it left Harriet with two dresses a year that she absolutely could not stand, when Dudley got every single present he could ask for.

One year, Harriet got a doll, but she was told that she had to look after it, there wouldn’t be a new one if she was careless with it. She didn’t much mind the doll, but it wasn’t much fun, but she did listen to Harriet, and they bonded over their shared hatred of the dresses they were made to wear.

She hated how she looked in the dress, and she hated that while she stood cooking breakfast, Aunt Petunia was standing behind her, wrangling her hair into a bow, which quite frankly, she was too old for. The only think Harriet liked about her appearance was the scar on her forehead, that Aunt Petunia often tried hiding with make up when they had important people come over. She had to go out and buy a whole new foundation to match Harriet’s skin. She liked when she could see her scar in the mirror, it was pale compared to the rest of her skin, almost white, and it looked like a real life lightning bolt, the kind you see in the sky, not the kind in drawings, and it came from her hairline down to her eyebrow, branches of the lightning diving further down towards her eye, even disrupting the hair in her eyebrow in one part. Harriet thought it looked ridiculously cool.

It was the one part of her that was cool, even when Aunt Petunia put her in little girl dresses and bows.

After Dudley’s annual tantrum about his number of presents, Piers’ mum dropped him off, and before she knew it, Harriet was stuck in the back seat of the car, stuck between Dudley and Piers, and wishing more than anything that she was somewhere else.

A motorbike whizzed past and Harriet watched it longingly, even as her aunt and uncle discussed what an eyesore it was. Nobody had spoken to her, so she didn’t offer up any information on her dream about the flying motorcycle, but it was a close call, as she was longing to reaffirm the dream out loud.

When they got to the zoo, Uncle Vernon pulled her aside by the wrist, gruffly warning her: “Behave yourself. None of those tantrums today, and for god’s sake, keep that dress clean.”

“I don’t throw tantrums!” Harriet protested, but he had already stopped listening to her. They weren’t tantrums, they were just, things. Things that happened, that nobody else could explain.

She walked ten feet behind the others as they traipsed around the zoo, ignoring the parents who cooed over her dress and her bow, and rolling her eyes at the ones who did so loudly enough that she could hear them.

Then they came to the reptile house. She sidled up to the snake that her uncle and cousin had been bothering before and was astounded as it woke up, even more so when it _winked _at her!

It looked towards her cousin and uncle and fixed Harriet with a look that told her clearly, ‘I get that all the time’.

“I know… it must be really annoying.” She sighed through the glass, but she was sure the snake wouldn’t hear her, let alone understand.

The snake, however, apparently didn’t care that it shouldn’t be able to hear or understand Harriet, nodded vigorously.

“Um, where did you come from?” Harriet asked, trying not to act shocked in front of this snake that could apparently understand her. The snake jabbed its tail at a sign next to the glass and Harriet read it out loud.

“Boa Consrtictor, Brazil. Was it nice there?” she asked conversationally, before the snake gestured for her to read the rest of the sign, for it to say that this specimen was bred in the zoo. “Oh, I see, so you’ve never been to Brazil?”

The snake shook its head, but the conversation was abruptly ended by Piers Polkiss, his little rat features twisted into an amazed grin, he shouted in his reedy voice; “DUDLEY, MR DURSLEY! COME LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IT’S DOING!”

Harriet found herself being pushed to the ground by her absolute lump of a cousin with an indignant shout. As she found herself being helped up by a stranger, she fixed Dudley with a glare, she hated the way he had pressed his pudgy face to the glass, his hands leaving grubby fingerprints on it, even though there were signs to say not to touch the glass. She hated how he had pushed her, and how nobody would ever tell him he was wrong, she hated-

Harriet didn’t have any more time to think about what she hated, because the glass had disappeared.

She pressed her back against the wall as Dudley fell forward into the snakes enclosure as the snake itself unravelled, slithering out onto the floor. The stranger who had helped Harriet up ran away screaming when the snake slid past her, but Harriet who stood still against the wall heard the snake. “Brazil, here I come… thanksss amigo.”

“Um, you’re welcome?” Harriet whispered as the giant snake made its way out of the zoo.

The zoo director had offered them lots of free tickets to come back, and other such goodies to keep them from going to the press with this, and that was how Dudley and Piers ended up in the back of the car with the noisiest toys they could find in the gift shop, and Harriet sitting quietly with a stuffed Elephant, all for free.

Piers stopped playing with his loud contraption just long enough to say, “Good job it didn’t bite you, Harriet, what with the way you were talking to it!”

Which was how Harriet found herself stuck in her room without dinner.

She had lived with the Dusley’s for as long as she could remember, and sometimes things didn’t seem so bad, but mostly, it was miserable. She couldn’t even remember her parents, but she thought, sometimes, she could remember bits of the car crash. When she was on her own for long, boring afternoons of gardening or housework, her memory could be stretched to this vision. A blinding flash of green light, and the pain on her forehead. It must have been the crash. But she couldn’t force her memory to show her her parents. Her aunt and uncle refused to speak about them, and a proper lady didn’t ask questions. She didn’t even have a photograph.

It was a lonely existence for Harriet Potter, though her cage may have been gilded, a cage is still a cage. Abuse is still abuse. And Harriet Potter was still about to find a way out.


	2. The Beginning: Part Two

The escape of the Boa Constrictor at the zoo was easily the most eventful thing to happen to Harriet for weeks. She watched through the window as Dudley went out on his stupid racing bike and tormented the neighbourhood, even knocking over old Mrs Figg, who was on crutches. She listened from the kitchen as Dudley broke his new video camera, and saw him pilot his remote-control plane so badly that it crash landed in the garden, never to fly again.

Harriet was starting to detest this summer, at least at school she had lessons to occupy her mind. Books to read, homework to do, and somewhere to _go. _This summer, aunt Petunia had her doing cleaning and gardening every single day, far more than usual. Her aunt said it was so that Harriet would know how to look after her own house properly when she was older.

“You have to know these things Harriet. How else will you be expected to keep a husband?” Her aunt snapped, as Harriet caught her sleeve in the washing up water. She rolled her eyes as Petunia busied herself with rolling up the sleeves on her blouse, it was nothing she hadn’t heard before, and quite honestly, if having a husband was anything like having someone like uncle Vernon in the house, she was quite certain that she didn’t want one.  
“God knows how Lily ever managed.” Petunia muttered as her bony fingers finished folding the sleeve up to Harriet’s elbow.

“Who’s Lily?” she asked instinctively. She knew the names of all of aunt Petunias friends, she helped make stupid little finger sandwiches and ice biscuits whenever they came over to tea, and she was sure a Lily had never been to the house before.

Harriet knew immediately she shouldn’t have asked, her aunts eyes narrowed and her blonde eyebrows came so close together that Harriet thought they might touch, but interestingly her aunt had also gone rather pale, and that didn’t normally happen when she was angry.

“Lily is your mother’s name, you stupid girl.” Aunt Petunia’s voice sounded like a rubber band snapping in two, and for a moment, Harriet was so stunned that her question had been answered at all, she quite forgot to be offended at being called stupid. After all, it wasn’t her fault that nobody told her anything about her parents, and she wasn’t stupid! She was much cleverer than Dudley.

“Stop staring, it’s unladylike.” Petunia sniffed, the colour steadily returning to her face as she started to regain her normal composure. “Stop asking me silly questions and finish the washing up, before the water gets cold. Then you can play outside for a bit, I’m going to lie down.”

Harriet didn’t reply as her aunt left the room. She was left with one glorious piece of information about her mother. Lily. It was a pretty name. She knew her father had been called James, uncle Vernon had gotten drunk once and commented with disgust to Petunia; “The girl had to have his colouring, didn’t she? What on earth was your sister thinking, that’s what I’d like to know. Do you reckon James was his real name? Or one he said to us to make us like him better, could have picked something better than _James._”

Lily and James sounded like lovely names, Harriet thought. They sounded like the type of people you might read about in story books, the ones described with lovely smiles, and kind faces. She had always known that she must look more like her dad than her mum, because she looked so different from aunt Petunia, and she has always pictured her mum as looking the same as aunt Petunia, in her head, just with a prettier smile, and a kinder face. But the name Lily didn’t suit that picture. Lily sounded like she must have been beautiful, was she blonde like her aunt? Somehow Harriet didn’t think so anymore. It was amazing how much a name can make you imagine a person differently, but the truth was it made her so much more real in Harriet’s mind than a vague ‘mum’ figure. Her mum had a name. Sometimes it was easier to imagine her dad, she knew he had skin like hers, that his hair must have been black, and maybe even it was a messy as hers; it was easier to imagine him when she could see him in all of her differences.

Lily. That tiny piece of information carried Harriet through the next few days like floating on a cloud. Even when aunt Petunia brought back her school uniform for Stonewall high, consisting of what looked like the stiffest and most itchy brand of grey blouses she had ever seen, it couldn’t break her daydream.

Of course, Smeltings was a school that now catered to both genders, something uncle Vernon liked to go on about as ‘pandering’, and ‘absolutely preposterous’. So Harriet got to go to the local high school instead, something she was absolutely not complaining about. After taking one look at Dudleys absolutely ridiculous school uniform (and proceeding to bruise several ribs from trying not to laugh in front of her aunt and uncle), she thanked every god out there that she would never have to experience whatever uniform that place had in mind for the poor girls that were forced to go there.

The bubble of Harriet’s lightened mood changed drastically when a letter appeared with her name on it, no longer was she looking forward to going to a different school, no longer having Dudley around in term time, and daydreaming about her mother who she finally knew the name of. No, now she was so curious it _hurt._

The post came at half nine on that Thursday morning in July, as it did every morning, and just as every other day, Harriet got up to get the post without being asked. Maybe if she took long enough, aunt Petunia would have to ask Dudley to help with breakfast instead of her.

A postcard from Marge, trying to brag about her holiday to the Isle of Wight, which as far as Harriet could make out, wasn’t actually anywhere interesting.  
A brown envelope that was addressed to ‘the homeowner’, which meant it was probably a bill of some kind.  
And a thick, heavy envelope, that seemed to be on a special type of paper. It had a purple wax seal on it, with an intricate crest stamped into it, a badger, a snake, a lion, and a badger, all wrapped around the letter H. As Harriet turned it over she nearly dropped it, the last thing she could have ever expected was written across the front.

_Miss H Potter,_  
_The Smallest Bedroom,_  
_4 Privet Drive,_  
_Little Whinging, _  
_Surrey_

It was her letter. Her name was right there in thick emerald green ink, in the most intricate handwriting she had ever seen, someone was writing to her! Who, she had no idea, but somebody knew where she was, someone wanted to talk to her! Forget the Boa Constrictor, this was the most interesting thing that had _ever _happened to Harriet.

“What are you doing out there girl, checking for letter bombs?” Uncle Vernon boomed from the kitchen, and chuckled at his own joke.

“Sorry, coming.” She called back. In one hand held the letter close to her chest, and dropped the others onto the table with disinterest. She sat back in her seat, her breakfast forgotten. Which was for the best anyway because Dudley had swiped all the bacon off her plate anyway.

She turned it over with trepidation, carefully breaking the wax seal with a tiny twinge of regret that she had to break something so interesting when suddenly-

“Dad! Dad, Harriet got a letter!” Dudley shouted, his piggy eyes full of spite as uncle Vernon snatched her letter from her easily.

“Hey! Give it back it’s mine!” She said loudly, trying to snatch it back without any success.

“Who would be writing to you?” Her uncle replied, talking to her as if she was stupid and must have clearly read the name on the envelope wrong.

“It is! It’s mine, it says so on the front, they even know which bedroom I’m in!” Harriet protested, shouting across the breakfast table at this point.

For the first time in her life, nobody told Harriet off for shouting, her aunt and uncle had gone extremely pale, their faces starting to resemble the colour of old porridge. Except for the red splotchy bits creeping up her uncles neck, Harriet could believe that their blood had just disappeared, they were that pale.

“Out! OUT! Both of you, to your rooms!” Uncle Vernon roared, and Harriet could see a vein in his temple throbbing with the effort of not exploding right there and then.

“But its my letter!” Harriet shouted indignantly at the same time Dudley started whining “But dad I want to read it!”

“GET OUT, THE PAIR OF YOU!” He snapped, his voice drowning out everyone else’s but this was important so Harriet screamed back.

“But its MY letter! Give it back!” She had no idea her voice could even be that loud, and this was the point where aunt Petunia stepped forward, grabbing Harriet by her wrist and Dudley by his earlobe and marching them out of the room.

“You will do as your told!” She hissed, slamming the kitchen door behind them after she pushed them both into the hallway.

Dudley, who had never been treated like this in his life, began to cry at his mother, but Harriet could tell that it wasn’t going to work and immediately went to look through the keyhole. Dudley caught on and pushed her down to the ground, but Harriet was far more interested in listening at the door than she was at getting Dudley back right now, and pressed her stomach to the ground, looking at her aunt and uncles feet through the crack in the door.

“-we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer. . . Yes, that's best. . . we won't do anything. . . "

"But--"

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took her in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

Harriet had no idea what they were talking about, and nobody wanted to give her any answers.

Her aunt stopped asking her to do housework, and made her stay up in her room. They locked her door from the outside every morning and only let her out after the post had arrived. Every single morning she saw her uncle burning more and more of her letters.

Harriet wanted to know what was inside those letters so badly that it burned. Someone wanted to talk to her. Someone wanted to talk to her so badly that they kept sending more and more of these letters. Someone knew she wasn’t being allowed to read them.

Harriet had once thought that being forced to do housework all the time was the worst thing to happen to her all summer, but she was wrong. Being forced to stay in her room and do nothing all the while letters were being delivered to her in increasingly bizarre ways was so much worse.

Uncle Vernon nailed up the letter box, and they were being pushed through the sides of the door and the window in the downstairs bathroom. He went around sealing every crack around every door and window, and instead they came in through the eggs that the milkman had delivered that morning. How on earth someone put them in there Harriet didn’t know, but when Sunday arrived she saw her uncle looking rather self-satisfied as they sat down for breakfast.

He kept muttering to himself about no post on Sundays, and Harriet thought he must be quite mad if he thought _that _was going to stop whoever was trying to write her, they seemed quite determined and she didn’t think that a simple thing like it being Sunday was going to stop them.

When the first letter flew out of the chimney, Harriet thought she was dreaming. By time a few hundred of them were flying around the room, she started to believe it, snatching as many as she could out of the air and gathering them in her arms, up her sleeves, down her jumper, in her sock. Maybe if she hid enough of them she would be able to read one later.

This didn’t work, as it turned out. The rest of the day saw the four of them packing up into the car and driving across the country at her uncles insistence.

Harriet was starting to give up hope of ever being allowed to read the letters, which, as she had taken to pointing out at every opportunity, were rightfully hers. Especially after uncle Vernon even got the ones that were delivered to her at the cheap hotel they had stayed at, even thought Harriet was staying in a different room to her uncle.

She wondered when uncle Vernon might give up and go home, but when he came to them with the crazed plan of staying at a hut on the sea, she realised that he truly was quite mad, and they might be running from these letters forever.

Listening to Dudley whine on about his television programmes, she thought with a jolt of realisation that it was her birthday tomorrow, and while her birthdays had never been anything exactly special, she wasn’t exactly enthused to spend it in a freezing cold shack on the sea.

Then, the giant came.

And on reflection, Harriet thought that this was actually the perfect way to spend her birthday.


	3. The Burrow, an introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly and Arthur Weasley would get through most days feeling incredibly grateful for the life they had built, they would spend others fretting about money, and how they had to give their daughters more hand-me-downs than they would have liked, but there was never once a day that the burrow wasn’t filled with love.

The Burrow was once a quaint cottage on the edge of a quaint village called Ottery St Catchpole. It was once home to an old muggle farmer and her husband, who had liked the quiet life. Without children, they had opted to live out their days on the farm, which had been unloved when they moved in. Over their lifetime they had nursed it back to health, and had ended up selling off the bigger fields, leaving them with a healthy apple orchard, a chicken coop, and plenty of land that had started once again to overgrow when they stopped keeping livestock. When they sold it to a young, rather odd couple in order to move to the seaside, they had no idea that their quaint little cottage was about to become the location for several decades of absolute mayhem.

The Burrow was now several stories high, rooms being built on top of each other whenever the need arose. It looked as though a stiff breeze should send the whole structure toppling over, but it weathered every storm that Britain had to offer, even if the ghoul in the attic made it very clear he wasn’t happy with the draughts that echoed throughout the house. It was overrun by girls, there wasn’t a day that went by where someone wasn’t bickering about missing clothes or how long someone was taking in the bathroom, even if there were three bathrooms it didn’t mean that Charlotte wasn’t taking too long to do her hair again when she categorically knew that Jill’s toothbrush was in there.

Molly and Arthur Weasley would get through most days feeling incredibly grateful for the life they had built, they would spend others fretting about money, and how they had to give their daughters more hand-me-downs than they would have liked, but there was never once a day that the burrow wasn’t filled with love.

Ruth Weasley wouldn’t tell you that there was anything remarkable about where she lived, or about herself. She was the youngest girl with five sisters, and still got beaten out of the youngest child slot by the only boy in their family. She didn’t think she was anything different, or special.

Jill was head girl, and she got all twelve OWLs, and she was considered to be the best big sister of the bunch, after all, she had the most practise. She let the younger ones climb into bed with her and never once made fun of any of them for it. She knew how to do healing spells before mum found out what anyone had been up to, and was the best at sneaking them chocolate. After leaving school she became a curse breaker for Gringotts, and travelled the world. She remembered to send their mum a letter every Tuesday and Friday without fail.

Charlotte was a prefect, and she was Quidditch captain, she could have gone on to play for England if she wanted, but instead chose to go and work with dragons in Romania, continuing to give their mother a heart attack every time she left it longer than a week to send a letter, which she did a lot, but Ruth figured that it must be hard to find the time to write letters when there were dragons to look after.

Prissy was a bit boring, but mum was so proud of her darling Priscilla for taking all twelve OWLs just like Jill, and she was planning on taking more NEWTs than Jill. As much as she was an absolute swot sometimes, she really was good at school, and she had been given a prefect badge over the summer, just like Jill and Charlie, and mum and dad were dead proud of how studious she was. She wanted to get a job at the ministry like dad.

The twins were already special, just for being twins. Even more than that though, they made everyone laugh, they were the funniest people Ruth thought she would ever meet, even if they loved to wind her up. Freida was quicker to make fun of people than Georgia, but they usually had their hearts in the right place, and everyone loved them. Even when mum was telling them off, they could make her laugh.

Then there was Gideon, the only boy in a line of girls. So he didn’t have to fight for his own place, he had one carved out for him just for being born a boy. Not that Ruth minded him so much, actually she quite liked having someone so close to her age, Gid was only a year younger than her, and save for the twins (and they were born together so that didn’t count), they were the closest in age to any of their siblings.

So no, Ruth wouldn’t have told you that she was anything special, she would have told you that she wasn’t going to get twelve OWLs, and she would never be made quidditch captain, that she probably wasn’t going to be a prefect or head girl. That sometimes she tried to lighten the mood and make people laugh, but half the time she just made things worse. She would have also told you to call her Roo, Ruth sounded like an old lady’s name.

Harriet Potter on the other hand would have told you that her best friend had a wicked sense of humour. She was the best person at chess that Harriet had ever seen, and when she wasn’t thinking about it too hard, she could be pretty smart. She was the most fun person in the world even when they were just doing homework. She was a stronger quidditch player than she gave herself credit for. Harriet would have told you that there were far more important things than being prefect or head girl, though even she would admit, being quidditch captain might be pretty cool. Harriet would tell you that Roo was incredibly brave and steadfast. She knew everything about the wizarding world and explained often without being asked. She would always stand up to bullies like Delphinus Malfoy, or Snape, and she was the best friend Harriet could have ever asked for. She was the first person Harriet had met to show her genuine and unquestioning kindness, and also to give her a nickname.

Hattie sounded much nicer after all.

She would have told you that the Burrow was one of her favourite places in the world, after Hogwarts. She would have told you how cool Ruth’s oldest sisters sounded. How Prissy was actually helpful with directions and homework questions, and how the twins were brilliant and she could tell them apart from the day they first met because it wasn’t that hard to notice how Georgie hung back ever so slightly and Freida was quicker to speak when she was used to reading her aunt and uncles mood to navigate her days. (Well, maybe she wouldn’t tell you why she could tell them apart.) She would say that Gideon was actually pretty cool to be around once he grew out of acting odd around her.

Hattie would have told you that Ruth Weasley was her favourite person in the world, and that she was remarkable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this is a short chapter, but it felt like a nice thing to have in its own chapter rather than serving as a kind of prologue. I'm still not sure if this is going to be linear or not, it has been so far because the first two chapters are a part one and two, and then this one is an introductory chapter to other characters. Obviously in the fic description I've said it's snapshots into her life, so I think I might start posting whatever I'm working on and not worrying about it being in exact order, because it's following cannon events quite closely, I just want to look at the differences that the gender makes and maybe fill in some moments that we don't really see in the books anyway.  
So yeah, that's a bit of a ramble, but as usual comments and reviews keep me going!


	4. The Despair of Grimmauld Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only silver lining of the evening was discovering that her father hadn’t been a prefect either. She couldn’t even explain why that thought made her feel so much better, but it truly did. She finally felt as though she could enjoy the party and actually breathe once again.  
That was until Moody showed her the photo. Wormtail stood there amongst her parents, among Sirius and Lupin, amongst the rest of the order, as though he belonged there with them. Suddenly it hit her all at once how bitterly unfair it all was. Wormtail got to spend years with her parents, with her family, whilst Harriet barely remembered them. He got to stand with the people Harriet cared about most and he pretended to be one of them.

Gideon Weasley was suddenly very _tall. _Hattie could have sworn that he was not this tall before. And when, exactly, had his shoulders gotten that broad? Had she just not been paying attention? She knew she had a lot going on last year, what with the Triwizard tournament, but surely she would have noticed at some point?

It didn’t matter much, in fact Harriet wasn’t entirely sure why the thought had pierced through the fog of her indignant anger as she sat, _finally_, at Grimmauld place, instead of back at the Dursleys in her aggressively pink bedroom that made her feel like she was six every time she set foot in it. It was a relief to be back in the world she belonged in, and she had only really noticed that Gid had changed because of the laughter coming from that end of the table as Tonks started changing her face from one thing to the other. Gid and Hermes seemed to have favourites and started putting in requests. The thought prickled her, how long had they all been here, without her? Not caring that she was back in Little Whinging, forced into a ridiculous curfew and resorting to making tea for her aunt and uncle in order to catch glimpses of the news downstairs, and being told constantly that she shouldn’t worry her little head about the goings on of the world. It would have prickled her more, but the laughter served to break through some of her foul mood and soon enough she was far more interested in the possibility of information being offered up by her godfather to care at all about how tall Gideon had suddenly gotten, nor how long Hermes had been here for to be able to laugh so easily.

Their time at Grimmauld place was dull, far less interesting than Hattie had assumed, what with everyone else being here, but it was a damn sight better than the Dursleys. She had taken pleasure in horrifying Sirius with every detail of her baby pink and white bedroom, right down to the rose patterned curtains and awful ballerina alarm clock. He promised her that once he was acquitted and they got a proper house, the whole place would be decked out in black, and they would burn anything pink that made its way into their house.

Time with Sirius didn’t mean that Hattie was fine with being excluded from meetings and having information hid from her. Frieda and Georgie had proved themselves to be certifiable geniuses on this front, the extendable ears had been a godsend. Not that they found out anything more than snippets, and their theorising about what was actually going on often didn’t serve to make Harriet feel any better, but at least that felt more productive than bloody cleaning. 

Granted, magical cleaning was a tad more exciting than what Hattie had been doing back at the Dursleys for years. Cleaning up a house infested with dark magic did bring a certain level of excitement to the situation, but after a day or two even the threat of getting bitten by whatever they were trying to clean became dull.

Hattie could see exactly why Sirius hated being here, the halls were narrow, the ceilings high, and there was very little natural light in the place. The torches on the walls bathed the house in a yellowish glow that honestly seemed to make more shadows than actually providing any useful light. Kreacher got on Hattie’s nerves despite Hermes continued attempts to connect with the house elf. In fact she felt quite sure that Hermes constant nattering about SPEW were pushing her opinion quite in the direction that he wasn’t intending.

She hated seeing her godfather moping as much as he was, especially after she was acquitted by the wizengamot, and the excitement she felt about going back to Hogwarts only served to feed her guilt at having to leave Sirius cooped up in this house.

“He really is being quite selfish, you know.” Hermes pointed out as Hattie was begging to pack a few things into her trunk with very little enthusiasm, mulling over her mixed feelings about going back to school.

“Selfish? Are you mental? How much would you like to be stuck in this place?” Roo shot back incredulously, firmly on Hattie’s side as she usually was. As much as Hattie appreciated it, and she did, sometimes she wished her friends would stop bickering as much.

“I wouldn’t much, no, but it’s what Dumbledore wants, and Sirius is still a wanted man. It’s not like him getting recaptured would do much for the order. But that’s not what I mean, it isn’t fair for him to pin all his hopes on him and Hattie being outlaws together, he should be happy that she gets to go back to Hogwarts, not making her feel bad for going.” Hermes informed them with his usual lack of tact on the subject.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk about me as if I wasn’t here, actually.” She snipped as she started balling up her clothes to make more space in her trunk. “And telling people how they _should _feel isn’t how it works, you know. He doesn’t like being cooped up, and you don’t know what that’s like. Being stuck somewhere when you know somethings going on, and not being allowed to help, it’s like being at the Dursleys forever.” She added darkly, daring either of them to say that it hadn’t been that bad.

“Yeah, Hermes, of course he’s gonna feel a bit depressed about being left behind, it’s not his fault.” Roo agreed.

“Left behind? He’s a grown man, and we’re going back to school. Sometimes it feels like he just never grew up.”

“Didn’t get much of a chance in Azkaban I suppose.” Hattie snapped.

“Oh, Hattie, that isn’t what I mean and you know it. It’s just, sometimes I think Mrs Weasley’s right, he acts like he’s got his best friend back and he wants things to be exactly how they were.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“You’re not your parents, and he isn’t your friend. He’s your godfather, he’s meant to be responsible for you, it’s a different dynamic, and you know I’m right.”

“Maybe, Hermes, it’s not always important if you’re _right_, sometimes it would be nice if you were just, I don’t know, my friend.” Hattie groaned.

“I am, that’s why I’m saying this. I don’t want you to feel bad about going back to school. It’s important, it’s our OWL year, and if you’re not qualified you won’t be able to do anything once we leave. Sirius is supposed to support you, not hold you back.”

“Merlins saggy left buttock, I swear if I have to hear you talk about how important OWLs are one more time I’m going to go and stick my head in that doxy nest in the drawing room.” Roo rolled her eyes.

“Don’t be so overdramatic.” Hermes retorted with an eye roll of his own.

“Can we just stop talking about it, please? Sirius is supportive, but the thought of this place is enough to depress anyone, and we’re not even back at Hogwarts yet so we don’t need to worry about OWLs until we are.” Hattie said finally, the knot in her stomach being far tighter than it had been before this conversation, and she had a horrible feeling that it was because Hermes was right, at least a little bit.

She slammed her trunk closed with as much force as she dared without waking the sleeping portrait of old Mrs Black and marched out into the hallway, almost walking directly into Gideon, who was leaning over the banister and throwing dungbombs at the door to the kitchen.

“Oh, hey Hattie.” He said, unabashed by the odd behaviour he was exhibiting.

“Hi, uh, what-” She was just off from the rest of her question as Frieda and Georgie came downstairs with a few pairs of extendable ears in their arms.

“It’s a no go on the extendable ears, I’m afraid, Mums put an imperturbable charm on the door.” Gideon sighed.

“How can you tell?” Roo asked from where she was standing behind Hattie, who had quite frozen to stop herself from walking straight into Gideon.

“Throw a dungbomb at it and if it can’t make contact with the door, then it’s been charmed.” He said, throwing another one at the door and watching along with the rest of them as it got close and then sailed away a little bit further down the hallway. “Tonks taught me.”

“Ah well, worth a try. I’ll bet they’re nearly finished now anyway.” Frieda shrugged, stuffing the extendable ears into her pockets out of sight.

As if on cue, Mrs Weasley bustled out of the kitchen, and called as loudly as she dared for everyone to come downstairs for dinner.

“What on earth are all these dungbombs doing here?” She asked as she stood to the side of the hallway to let everyone past.

“Crookshanks.” Gideon replied smoothly, “He loves playing with them.”

Hattie raised one eyebrow at the lie as they sat down at the table and Gideon gave her a short grin behind his mothers back and Hattie found herself laughing silently to herself.

When Hermes and Roo’s prefect badges got delivered a few days later, Hattie found herself feeling surprisingly jealous. It wasn’t as though she had been thinking about prefects. It wasn’t as though she actually wanted to be a prefect, was it? But if she sat down and thought about it, Dumbledore picked the prefects, with help from McGonagall probably, and why didn’t Dumbledore pick her? Didn’t he trust her? Did he think she hadn’t done well enough last year? Was it because she couldn’t save Celia?

It couldn’t have been because of her grades, she got the same grades than Roo, if not better. She was better than Roo at a lot of things actually, when it came down to it. Or was she? She had certainly done more than Roo. There was no doubting who would get the boys prefect badge, but even then, she had done more than both Roo and Hermes. They hadn’t been there when she fought Quirrell, or the basilisk, it had been her who had produced that patronus to save Sirius, her who had done all of the tasks last year. They hadn’t fought a dragon, or saved people from drowning. They hadn’t seen Voldemort return. Hattie was the obvious pick, surely. Did this make her arrogant, like Delphinus Malfoy? Did she honestly think she was superior to her friends? Think herself better than Roo? _No, _she told herself firmly, _you’re better than Roo at quidditch, and that’s it. She’s my best friend and I’m happy for her. _

But like she had told Hermes, telling herself how she should feel didn’t stop her from what she was actually feeling. A horrible part of her felt like slipping upstairs to the twins’ room to laugh about how stupid the whole prefect thing was anyway. Another, louder, part of her reminded her that she didn’t actually want to be horrible just because Roo had finally beaten her at something. When Hermes came by to ask to borrow Hedwig, Hattie found that she _hated _the voice that was falling out from her throat. It was all high and polite, the same tone aunt Petunia had forced her to use at tea parties.

Roo bounded back into the room, having just gone to ask her mum for a new broom. “Just caught her!” she said happily. “She says she’ll get the Cleansweep if she can.”

“Cool,” Hattie replied, and she was thankful that her voice finally sounded like her own again. “Listen, Roo- well done, mate.”

Roo’s smile dimmed, just for a second, but she shook her head and laughed lightly, “I never thought it would be me! I thought it would be you!”

“Nah, I’ve caused too much trouble,” Hattie said, echoing something Frieda had said earlier.

“Yeah,” said Roo, “yeah, I suppose… C’mon, lets finish packing our trunks before everyone gets here for dinner.”

She plastered a smile on her face and forced herself to at least seem happy for her friends. And she was, at least, a part of her was, but she still felt confused, jealous, and a little bit betrayed by Dumbledore. Didn’t he trust her? Was he so angry at her for letting Voldemort come back? For not saving one of his students? For letting Voldemort kill Celia? _Don’t think about that_, she told herself sternly.

It felt worse to have her wondering confirmed at the party. To hear Kingsleys deep voice just audible over the chatter. “… why Dumbledore didn’t make Potter a prefect?”

Lupins reply brought her down even further. “He’ll have had his reasons,” he said firmly.

“But it would’ve shown confidence in her. It’s what I’d’ve done,” persisted Kingsley’s deep voice, “especially with the Daily Prophet having a go at her every few days….”

Tonks’ jokes about it didn’t seem to lighten Hattie’s mood either. ““My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities.”

“Like what?” asked Gideon, who was choosing a baked potato.

“Like the ability to behave myself,” said Tonks with a grin.

The only silver lining of the evening was discovering that her father hadn’t been a prefect either. She couldn’t even explain why that thought made her feel so much better, but it truly did. She finally felt as though she could enjoy the party and actually _breathe _once again.

That was until Moody showed her the photo. Wormtail. He was stood there amongst her parents, among Sirius and Lupin, amongst the rest of the order, as though he _belonged _there with them. Suddenly it hit her all at once how bitterly unfair it all was. Wormtail got to spend years with her parents, with her family, whilst Harriet barely remembered them. He got to stand with the people Harriet cared about most and he pretended to be one of them.

Feeling quite like she was about to vomit, she invented some kind of reason to dash upstairs, away from the party and the photos of people now dead. She hadn’t really been in much of a party mood in the first place, and now that Mrs Weasley had gone upstairs, it didn’t seem too rude to disappear.

Just when it seemed like this evening couldn’t get any worse for Hattie, she heard sobbing coming from the drawing room. Unable to walk away she pushed the door open to find Mrs Weasley cowering against the back room and shock ran through her veins as she saw Roo’s dead body sprawled across the floor. Through the initial drop of her stomach, she managed to hold onto some logic and remember that this wasn’t possible, Roo was downstairs telling anyone who would listen about her new Cleansweep.

“Mrs Weasley-” Hattie said softly from the doorway, not daring to get any closer, as she wasn’t able to use magic herself, but desperate to help.

“R-riddikulus!” She choked out, and the body changed. From Roo to Jill, from Jill to Prissy, from Prissy to the twins, from the twins to Hattie.

By this time, Hattie was practically begging Mrs Weasley to just come away at the top of her lungs, but she was rendered silent by the sight of her own dead body across the floor.

Her hair was draped across the carpet, her skin paler than she had ever seen it, there was a trickle of blood coming down from her nostril and her glasses were smashed, obscuring the green of her eyes to the point that Harriet couldn’t even tell if they were still her own eyes. Then she started to shrink, started to turn white and silver, and she kept shrinking until she wasn’t there anymore, it was a silvery orb floating off the ground.

Hattie hadn’t even notice Lupin push past her to come in. With a wave of his wand, the orb was gone in a puff of smoke, and suddenly she was aware that Sirius and Moody had come into the room with him. She was vaguely aware of Lupins voice as he comforted Mrs Weasley.

“Molly, don’t…Molly, it was just a boggart,” he said soothingly, as she started sobbing openly. “Just a stupid boggart…”

“I see them d-d-dead all the time!” Mrs. Weasley cried. “All the t-t-time! I d-d-dream about it . . .”

Sirius couldn’t stop staring at the patch of carpet where the boggart had lain, pretending to be Hattie’s dead body. She couldn’t blame him; the specifics of that image weren’t going to leave Hattie’s brain for a long time.

She turned on her heel and left, throwing herself onto her bed, she hated that the picture of her dead body was what she was going to be leaving Sirius with, that it was just another thing to add to the despair of Grimmauld Place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in two days. Can you tell I'm procrastinating my dissertation? As per usual, feedback is welcome and appreciated. Actively encouraged, in fact. Thanks for reading :)


	5. Since When Was Gideon Weasley This Confusing?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was though someone had lit her stomach on fire, the flames licking at her insides and scorching her skin. Her blood pulsed through her and she was surprised that the couple in front of her couldn’t hear her pulse by this point, what with how loud it was in her own ears, it seemed to burn all thought out her brain and the only thing left was an urge to jinx Deanna until all that was left was a puddle of jelly where she once stood.

“Alright, Potter?”

Without thinking, Hattie wheeled around to find the source of the voice and found herself face to face with Gideon Weasley. Or more accurately, face to chest.

Gideon Weasley, who’s voice suddenly reverberated through Hattie’s bones. Where had _that_ come from? It hadn’t been that _gravelly _when they had been making fun of Phlegm- Flavien, even. She really had to stop thinking of Flavien’s name as phlegm before his wedding to Jill, but it was so easy to substitute the name in her head for the jokes Gideon had been making almost daily over the summer.

Granted she hadn’t seen him much in the past week or two, maybe she just hadn’t noticed before.

“Cat got your tongue?” He teased, with a slight smirk that hinted that he might know exactly what he was doing to her.

Which was _what _exactly?

“Just caught me by surprise, Weasley.” She replied with a half shrug, finding her voice very suddenly and taking half a step back so she could look at him comfortably instead of craning her neck up. She suddenly understood exactly what Roo was complaining about every time she got grumpy that her baby brother had outgrown her. “What did you want?”

“Since when did you call me Weasley?” He asked, one eyebrow raised as though she hadn’t asked him a question at all.

“About the same time you started calling me Potter, I reckon.” She quipped back, unable to stop a smile from playing at her lips as she crossed her arms in front of herself.

“Fair play.” Gideon grinned, holding his hands up. “I just wanted to ask when quidditch try outs were, I figured after last year, it’s at least worth trying out, and you’re down two chases, so I figure why not?”

“You’re kidding right?” Harriet returned, looking at him incredulously, and at his momentary look of indignation, she ploughed on. “At least worth trying out? Gid, you single-handedly saved Gryffindor from an absolutely humiliating defeat last year, I’d be absolutely mental not to put you on the team and you know it.”

“Now now, Potter, you’re making me blush.” Gideon laughed her compliments off, “You should listen to Kevin, what if you find three brilliant first year chasers who work so well together it blows you away? You gotta run try outs.”

Hattie rolled her eyes, she was going to run them anyway, and as the only remaining member of the original team that Hattie had joined back in her first year, Kevin Bell’s opinion about the Gryffindor Quidditch team mattered a lot to her. “Yeah yeah, they’re next Sunday, 10 am, don’t be late.”

“Or what? Thought you’d be absolutely mental not to put me on the team?” He smirked at her easily, leaning back against the cold stone wall behind him.

“Or I’ll make you run laps. Without a broom.” Hattie retorted easily, her own smirk mirroring his as it dawned on him that she absolutely could, and would, make him run laps if he wound her up too far.

“Right you are then, captain.” He laughed, standing up straighter and pushing his hands into his pocket. “Next Sunday, I’ll be there, do you mind if I let Deanna know? She said she might try out this year, chaser and all.”

And just like that something in the atmosphere dropped a hundred degrees, and Hattie involuntarily shivered. Did a ghost just wander past without her noticing or something?

“Right, yeah, of course. The notice is going up later today, but yeah, tell who you like.” Hattie nodded, shrugging a little to try and maintain some semblance of a relaxed attitude.

“Cool, see you later Hattie.” He smiled, and started to wander off seemingly without a care in the world. Hattie wondered why she suddenly felt much heavier than she had less than ten minutes ago.

* * *

Bludgers were going faster, Hattie swore by it. Usually she was aware of where they were on the pitch, and usually, she was pretty she was pretty good at dodging them. But usually Gideon Weasley wasn’t on the pitch, making jokes and bloody _grinning _all the time.

Hattie was beginning to find herself at a loss as to what to do. It didn’t make a lot of sense, the fact that these days she found herself seeking Gideons company over Roo and Hermes, but then, with the amount that they’ve been arguing lately it wasn’t surprising. At least Roo hadn’t noticed exactly what it was that was distracting Hattie, particularly during practice, she was facing her own issues, namely her nerves. Once Roo let in one goal, she had a horrid tendency to loose confidence in herself and proceed to let in the next six goals, it was infuriating to watch because Hattie knew full well that Roo was better than that.

After the incident in Hogsmeade with Kevin Bell, Hattie had been left with very little choice but to ask Deanna to join them for practises, it didn’t look as though Kevin was going to be back before the next game, and Hattie wanted to make sure the Gryffindor team could still play. There was something infuriating about how well Deanna Thomas fit into their team, she played well with Gideon and Daniel Robins, and as a captain there was absolutely no reason to regret asking her to play, nor as a friend. Deanna had been steadfast in her support for Hattie from drawing banners for her first quidditch match, to her quiet but strong support last year even after her best friend Saoirse had come back saying how Mrs Finnegan thought Hattie to be a liar.

So why wasn’t the decision sitting right with Hattie?

She ran out of time to worry about it when Roo, who’s technique was becoming increasingly more uncontrolled, accidentally punched Daniel in the face.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” She gasped, following in a more erratic zig-zag pattern as Deanna lead Daniel down to the ground, as he had one hand covering his nose that was dripping blood everywhere. “It was an accident! I just-”

“Panicked.” Interjected Gideon, his temper flaring as he looked gingerly at the blood dripping from Daniels hand. “Roo, you absolute prat, look at the state of him!”

“I can fix it.” Hattie sighed, pulling her wand from her wand and fixing Daniels nose with a quick _episky_, “Gideon, don’t call Roo a prat, you’re not the captain of this team-”

“Well, you seemed too busy to call her a prat, and I thought someone should.” He said, but the anger was already fading from his voice, the quip felt more friendly than it might have done a second ago and Hattie found herself ducking behind her hair to hide a growing smile but quickly pulled it from her face.

“Come on everyone, back in the air!”

Overall it was one of the worst practices Hattie had ever ran, and Roo was wallowing in self-pity as she helped pack the equipment away afterwards.

“I played like a sack of dragon dung.” Roo groaned as they lugged the chest of quidditch balls back to the shed.

“No you didn’t, you were the best keeper at try outs. You just need to believe in yourself.” Hattie said, in a voice that didn’t leave room for an argument. “You’re only problem is nerves, I wouldn’t have you on the team if you couldn’t play.”

She kept up her flow of encouraging remarks as they made their way back up to the castle, and by time they got inside, Roo looked marginally more cheerful. Or at least, she no longer looked like she wanted to pitch herself off the astronomy tower, and Hattie was going to count that as a win.

“Honestly, you just need to work on not psyching yourself out and you’ll be fine.” Hattie concluded as they headed to their usual shortcut up to the Gryffindor tower. Hattie found herself glad she had finished her encouraging monologue when she came to push the tapestry aside, because it felt like all of the words in the world had left her head completely when her brain finally computed the image in front of her. Deanna and Gideon were locked in an embrace and were kissing with all the energy that they had just been drumming up in practice.

It was though someone had lit her stomach on fire, the flames licking at her insides and scorching her skin. Her blood pulsed through her and she was surprised that the couple in front of her couldn’t hear her pulse by this point, what with how loud it was in her own ears, it seemed to burn all thought out her brain and the only thing left was an urge to jinx Deanna until all that was left was a puddle of jelly where she once stood.

Hattie stood still as stone, battling with this sudden urge to fight one of her friends, when Roo’s voice pierced what Hattie wished had been silence, who knew the sound of two people kissing could be burned into someone’s brain?

“Oi!”

Gideon finally released Deanna and looked around. His eyes locked on Hattie and Roo standing in the hall and holding the tapestry to one side and he seemed to be making an effort to keep from reacting to their presence. “What?”

“I don’t want to find my own brother dragging his girlfriend down a public corridor!”

“Well it was a deserted corridor until a second ago when you decided to butt in!” He retorted, and Hattie could hear the Weasley temper growing in both of them and knew that this wasn’t going to be pretty.

Deanna on the other hand was looking embarrassed, she gave Hattie an awkward smile that Hattie didn’t return. She was busy wondering if it was acceptable to kick her off the team right there and then.

“Uh, c’mon Gideon, lets just, go back to the common room.” Deanna suggested, trying to diffuse the tension where Gideon and Roo stood staring daggers at each other.

“You go! I think it’s about time I had a conversation with my dear sister.” He said sharply.

Deanna didn’t need another opening to get the hell out of there and walked away quickly.

“Let me make this perfectly clear,” Gideon said stonily, pushing his hair back from his forehead, “it is _none _of your business who I go out with, nor what I do with them, Ruth-”

Hattie knew as soon as Gideon said Ruth instead of Roo that there wasn’t any peaceful way to diffuse this situation anymore.

“Yeah, it is!” Snapped Roo, just as angrily, “Do you think I want people going around saying that my brother is the type of guy to-”

“To do what?” Shouted Gideon, drawing his wand. “That I’m the type of guy to do what, exactly?”

“She doesn’t mean anything, Gideon-” Hattie said on autopilot, though really, she felt just as thrown by what they had just seen.

“Oh yes she does!” Gideon snapped at Hattie, who was surprised to find herself on the receiving end of his temper, but she resigned herself to sitting in the middle of this argument. “Just because she’s never snogged anyone in her life! Just because the best kiss she’s ever had is from our Auntie Muriel-”

“Shut your face!” Screeched Roo, her face such a deep shade of red that Hattie was starting to get concerned.

“I will not!” Yelled Gideon, long past letting this go. “I’ve seen you, always flitting around when Phlegm’s about, hoping he’ll kiss your cheek in that stupid French way, and it’s pathetic! If you went out and got some snogging done yourself, you wouldn’t think every other person who does it is a terrible person!”

Roo pulled out her wand and Hattie swiftly stepped between them, hoping that neither of them were angry enough to risk cursing her in the process of getting at each other.

“You have _no _clue what you’re on about!” Roo snapped, trying to get a clear shot at Gideon around Hattie’s shoulder while she tried to keep Roo from getting a clear aim. “Just because I don’t do it in public-!”

Gideon let out a snort of laughter and tried to pull Hattie out of the way, but Hattie planted her feet firmly and put her weight into staying grounded.

“Been kissing Pigwideon, have you? Or have you got a picture of Auntie Muriel up in the girls dormitory?”

“You’re an asshole, Gid!” Roo growled as she shot a spell under Hattie’s left arm that was only off by inches. Hattie grabbed Roo’s wrist to stop her from shooting another spell and pressed her other hand against Gideon’s chest to warn him not to try anything either.

“I thought you were implying that kissing my girlfriend made me an asshole, but no its your own lack of experience.” Gideon bellowed, and Hattie’s stomach dropped as he called Deanna his girlfriend. “Hattie snogged Chang last year! And Hermes snogged Victoria Krum! It’s only you that thinks it’s something scandalous, it’s only you that makes this big deal out of this whole thing and decides its perfectly alright to embarrass me in front of Deanna! Don’t you think I’m a little bit sick of having six older sisters looming over me? Making sure I’m not being such a ‘bloke’? Especially coming from you, who has about as much experience as a twelve-year-old!”

With that last scathing statement, Gideon stormed off, and Hattie quickly let go of Roo’s wrist and stepped back. Hattie assumed part of this fight was happening because while they were so close in age, Roo was still the older sibling, and maybe it was embarrassing to have your older sister getting in the way of that kind of thing. Equally it was probably extremely irritating to have your little brother call you out on a lack of experience.

Mrs Norris appeared at the corner and quickly stopped her train of thought. “C’mon, lets just, go.” She sighed as they walked back to the common room, neither one of them saying much to the other.

Why had that thrown her so much? She felt dizzy, her brain was fuzzy, like her senses had been fried by lightning. _It’s because he’s Roo’s brother, _she told herself. _It was just weird to see him kissing Deanna because he’s Roo’s brother. Because you know him so well. _

But then, without welcome, she thought of Gideon kissing her like that, and the scorch marks inside her turned to a warm glow instead. She shuddered to think what Roo would say about it. Something about a ‘betrayal’ and, ‘girl code’. Whatever that was.

“Do you think Hermes did snog Krum?” Roo asked abruptly as they reached the portrait. “She was so much older than us. Bit weird don’t you think?”

“What?” She asked, looking up and pulling her thoughts away from wondering just what it would feel like to have Gideons hands around her waist. “Oh, uh, I mean, she was only two years older than us, right?” She replied, dodging the actual question, to which the answer would have been ‘definitely’, but Roo seemed to take the answer from the redirection and didn’t say anything else. Instead deciding to glower at her feet as they headed up to their dormitory. 

Merlin. It had been a weird day. Hattie lay awake on her four poster and wondered what on earth had happened to her brain today. It was as though it had short-circuited at the sight of Gideon kissing someone else. But why? Was it not natural that she didn’t want to see him making out with someone? Much in the same was that Roo didn’t want to see it. Had they not hung out all summer? Playing quidditch and winding up Roo, making easy jokes about Jill and Phlegm? She’d known Gideon for _years _now, why did she feel like this _now? _Granted, he wasn’t exactly as quiet as he had been when Hattie had first met him, and he definitely wasn’t as _small _as when Hattie had first met him.

_He’s Roo’s brother. Her younger brother. _Hattie told herself firmly. _He’s out of bounds, even if he has grown up. A lot. _

Roo was more important to her than anyone. She wouldn’t risk her friendship with her for anything.

It didn’t stop her from feeling mightily confused over the next few days, although she definitely kept this particular confusion to herself, not that Hermes or Roo noticed. Roo was treating Hermes with a cold shoulder that could rival Antarctica, and Hermes, who had absolutely no idea why, started to get frustrated with her attitude very quickly and made an increasing number of furious trips to the library.

Hattie couldn’t see anything becoming less confusing or weird over the coming weeks, so she braced herself for the social storm to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got caught up on Harriet and Gideon's emerging relationship and honestly this part of book six where Harry realised how great Ginny is has always been one of my favourites. I think this is as close to the books as I'm going to get, but I couldn't resist. The next chapter is /probably/ not going to be about Gideon, I know I've given him a lot of attention for a fairly short fic so far, so I think the next one is going to be a look into Hermes, quite possibly in first/second year.  
Again, feedback is welcomed with open arms, I can't promise I won't start a whole discussion with you guys in the comments section though! :P


	6. Hermes Granger's Guide To Making Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermes still didn’t know how to make friends, exactly, but he did know that there were some things that happened that meant you had to be friends with the people it happened with. Knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll in the boys bathroom on Halloween certainly seemed to be one of them, and Hermes found himself with some real friends for the first time in his life.

Hermes Granger had big teeth. He wasn’t aware when he noticed he had big teeth, maybe it had been his parents commenting on the fact that he would one day need braces, or maybe it had been one of the other kids making some kind of stupid joke. He didn’t remember, there had been so many comments.

Not just about his teeth either, his name was Hermes, for crying out loud. Kids couldn’t pronounce it right all the time, and the certainly couldn’t spell it, and kids did not like things they couldn’t understand. Hermes knew all about the origin of his name, he had asked his parents, and they had given him books on Greek gods and myths.

Every time Hemes had a question, his parents would find him a book and tell him to find the answer out for himself, and come back to them after he had read. That way he would learn, and that was something Hermes was good at. He was always the smartest in his class, he always had his hand up, and more importantly he was always asking questions.

The more he asked, the more he would know, and the smarter he would be. There were lots of questions, though, that probably shouldn’t have been asked.

For instance, ‘Why does Sarah have red hair if her mummy and daddy both have black hair?’ had been answered with a book on genetics and a follow up conversation about adoption with her parents. It had then been followed by a parent-teacher meeting about ‘appropriate discussion topics at school’. Or “Why does Mark always smell weird?” Had been answered with a punch to the stomach from Mark himself, even though Hermes hadn’t been asking Mark, he had been asking the teacher, and he wasn’t poking fun, he was just curious. This had been followed up with a book on puberty from his parents, and a discussion on why some questions were better not to ask out loud.

Hermes knew he wasn’t very good at making friends. It wasn’t that he didn’t try, but other kids didn’t seem to care about any of the questions he asked, they didn’t want to find out the answer, they would rather watch cartoons or play games out on the street. They didn’t like his name, and they didn’t like the way that Hermes seemed to know everything. They also didn’t like coming to Hermes’ house for tea. Other kids might be allowed fizzy pop and some sweets while they had a friend round, but all Hermes’ house had was carrot sticks and tooth friendly mints, which tasted weird.

Books, on the other hand, were always there. They were fun too, he knew not everyone thought so, but Hermes could go on any adventure he wanted, all he had to do was find the right book. He could go sailing with pirates, or he could survive out in a forest, or he could travel around the world in a hot air balloon.

Books were easier to understand than people, but Hermes learned. He learned that most of the time it was best to keep your questions to yourself and find the answers out later, or even better, to do your research ahead of time so you already knew. He watched people, and started to understand how they worked. He was still trying to figure out how he fit into that when a letter arrived for him.

The letter wasn’t delivered in the post, it was hand delivered, by a tall lady with dark greying hair pulled back in a tight bun. She wore thin glasses, and a deep emerald cloak, along with a wide brimmed witches hat, the kind you saw in storybooks.

She introduced herself as Professor McGonagall, and she answered every single one of Hermes’ questions without changing her tone or expression once. Hermes decided right there and then that he liked this woman. She knew what she was talking about, explained the rules clearly, and never once got irritated with Hermes’ questioning.

She took his family to Diagon Alley to buy everything that Hermes would need for the school year ahead, and Hermes brought as many books as his parents would allow, and devoured as much of it as he could before attending Hogwarts. That part was easy, Hermes wanted to know everything in those books and more. Magic was real, and not only was it real, but it had rules and mechanics behind it. Hermes knew he would be attending school with children who’s parents were magic, and he really didn’t want to go through his weird questions phase again, so it made complete sense to go through every book he could with a fine tooth comb.

On September first, Hermes felt prepared. Or well, as prepared as any kid going to live with a bunch of strangers in a castle the Scottish countryside to learn magic which they had only discovered was real a month beforehand could feel. This feeling of preparedness lasted until he got onto the train and realised with a jolt, that he still had no idea how to make friends.

Hermes was on the train twenty minutes early, his dad had helped load his trunk onto the train and Hermes had said his goodbyes before most people had even arrived. He changed into his school robes and sat reading a book as the platform grew crowded and manic, and continued flipping through the pages as the train pulled out from the station. He wasn’t sure if he was giving off unfriendly vibes or what, but nobody asked to sit in next to him. Eventually he was torn from his book by a girl opening the door to her compartment. She had short brown hair, cut into a bob, a round face with rosy red cheeks, and she appeared to be crying.

“You haven’t seen a toad, have you? I’ve lost mine, and I can’t find him _anywhere.” _The girl had asked, without any preamble, but Hermes got the feeling this was because she was upset rather than down to any rudeness on the girls part. Her voice was small and she sounded nervous even asking Hermes about her toad.

“I haven’t, I’m sorry.” He replied, quickly putting his book down on the seat next to him. There was a moment of silence where the girl looked like she might start sobbing, but Hermes realised that this was his first chance to actually make a friend and quickly gestured for the girl to sit down for a moment. “I’m Hermes Granger, I’m a first year. What’s your name?”

The girl took a moment to decide what to do, like she wasn’t sure if Hermes was about to start being mean to her or not, or if she should just move on and keep searching for her toad. She let out a small huff at the idea of where her toad could have got to now but decided to take the seat the boy was gesturing to. “I’m Nellie, Nellie Longbottom.” She said quietly, crossing her arms over herself as she sat down.

“Are you a first year too?” Hermes asked, and the girl nodded. “That’s great, are you parents magic? Mine aren’t, they’re both dentists, I had no idea I was even a wizard until Professor McGonagall came to tell me, but I’ve read all the books I can. I can’t imagine I’ll be that far behind after all that reading.”

“My parents are- I mean, they don’t…. My gran raised me. She’s a witch though.” Nellie replied, her cheeks turning red as she answered.

“Oh… What happened?” Hermes asked before he could stop himself.

The silence was deafening and Hermes realised at once this wasn’t a question he should have asked. “With your toad, I mean. Where did you last see it, I can help you look if you’d like?” He offered quickly, trying to pretend like he hadn’t just asked what was on reflection, a very personal question to a girl he had just met.

The girl, to her credit, jumped on the chance to pretend that the conversation had never strayed from the topic of her missing pet. “I had him when I got on the train, and I think I had him when I was looking for a compartment, but by time I found one I had no idea where he went.”

“Come on then, lets look.” Hermes said, kindly, but a little bossily.

So they did. Soon enough they came across a compartment with a gangly redhead girl and a skinny tan girl with black hair. Hermes pulled their compartment door open and said very quickly, “Has anyone seen a toad? Nellies lost one and she can’t find it.”

“We’ve already told her we haven’t seen a toad.” The redhaired girl retorted, rather impatiently, like she wasn’t happy to have been interrupted, but Hermes didn’t particularly care much about her tone, he was more interested in the wand she held aloft.

It looked old, and he saw a silver white thread poking out the end, and he was about to ask why he would have such an old wand when they all had to buy school things this summer, but stopped himself. He’d already asked one too many questions on this train. “Are you doing magic then?” He asked instead. “Go on, lets see.”

“Erm, okay.” The girl said hesitantly, clearing her throat and pointing her wand at her rat. “Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid fat rat yellow!” She said, more confidently than she probably felt, considering that absolutely nothing happened.

“Are you sure that's a real spell?” He asked, knowing that all the spells he had read about were in latin, and that this girl had either not read the books that she had, or someone else had probably tricked her. “Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft and wizardry there is, I've heard, I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough. I'm Hermes Granger, by the way, who are you?”

The girl seemed put out, by the way Hermes was talking, or by the fact that the spell hadn’t worked, he couldn’t tell, but she gave her name anyway.

“Roo Weasley.” She muttered, the tips of her ears turned red, and Hermes wondered why he noticed this about her. He turned to the other girl in the carriage as she answered too.

“Harriet Potter.”

“Are you really?” Asked Hermes, and words came spilling out before he could stop them, he might have been new to the wizarding world, but he knew that Harry Potter was a big name. “I know all about you, of course, I got a few extra books, for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.”

“Am I?” She asked, looking rather taken aback to find out she was in any kind of book at all.

“Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me," said Hermes. “Do either of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad… Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon.”

He left before he could look at the reactions on their faces, he knew he had talked a lot and quickly, and lots of people made fun of him when that happened, and Hermes was determined to have a better time at Hogwarts than he had at primary school, and anyway there was a toad to find.

* * *

  
People, it turned out, were just as difficult when they were witches and wizards. It turned out, that Hermes was the most knowledgeable first year of the lot, even out of those who had grown up in magical families. Nobody else had read all of their textbooks, and that baffled Hermes. Didn’t they want to learn magic? Didn’t they want to know how it all worked?

Friends were harder to make than Hermes had realised.

Four long weeks of September dragged on without much luck. She noticed that Roo and Hattie had become inseparable since they started, and so had Sairose and Deanna, two other Gryffindor girls. Nellie seemed to avoid Hermes a bit, but most things seemed to make Nellie nervous. The boys in her dorm didn’t seem to like her much either. Laurence Brown and Parvesh Patil had the beds nearest Hermes in the dorm, and they clicked immediately. They were a bit childish for Hemes taste anyway, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t frustrating when his dorm mates were getting along so brilliantly and he was spending most of his down time alone.

It finally reached a breaking point in October, he had been partnered with Roo in charms, and she wasn’t listening to what professor Flitwick was saying, she was going to poke someones eye out if she carried on slashing her wand through the air how she was. So Hermes had told him, it was the pronunciation and the wrist movement that mattered, and shown her now to do it. This just made her even more frustrated, and she was loudly proclaiming to Hattie as they walked across the courtyard.

“Honestly! He’s a nightmare, no wonder nobody wants to be his friend, he’s always going round telling people what to do and how to do it, like he knows everything!”

Hermes couldn’t stand it, not again. He pushed past the girl, cutting her tirade short, and stalked off in the direction of the loos, he just wanted to be alone, just for a while. If he went back to class the rest of them would be tittering about his disappearance, if he went to the dorms, Laurence and Parvesh would just laugh at him later for hiding there all day. So Hermes locked himself in a cubicle and cried.

He wouldn’t admit to it, he knew that was the kind of thing that kids loved to poke fun at, but Hermes was desperately lonely. He didn’t have many people to talk to at home either, but at least he had his mum and dad, at least he knew that not everyone hated him back home, because they always cared. So he cried silently, and wondered if he would rather be here learning magic, or at home with people who cared.

He didn’t know how long he had spent in the toilets when he started to pull himself together. The rumbling in his stomach told him he must be missing the feast, but he wasn’t much in the mood anyway. He was just about to exit his stall when he smelled something truly awful and heard the door slam to the bathroom. Hermes waited a moment, figuring it must have been some poor soul who hadn’t made it to the bathroom in time, and decided to save them some dignity by allowing them time to get into one of the stalls. But none of the stall doors made a sound, there was just this grunting noise and the awful smell.

He waited one moment more before opening the door and then Hermes screamed his head off.

There was a troll. A fully grown mountain troll. He had thick rubbery skin that looked like it was meant to be blue but it had gone off, it was wearing a sack like material around its waist like a kilt and its feet were the most disgusting thing Hermes had ever laid eyes on. He didn’t know toenails could be green and yellow until he was confronted with this monster before him.

It had a long, stupid looking face, and a dazed expression, as though he hadn’t thought there was anyone else in here with him, but as soon as Hermes had screamed, he started shuffling towards him.

Then, suddenly, Hattie and Roo burst in, and Hermes was even more confused. What were they doing in the boys toilets? Why weren’t they at the feast? Why had they come to help him? Roo hated him, didn’t she?

They started throwing things at the troll, yelling at it, and drawing it’s attention away from Hermes, and Hermes knew he ought to join in, but he stood stock still, frozen, his wand left in his pocket.

Before he had time to register what was going on, Hattie was on the trolls shoulders, her wand shoved up his nose in a manner that made Hermes cringe at the idea of what the troll must be feeling. Not in sympathy so much as absolute rejection of the idea of what a twelve-inch piece of wood up the nostril must feel like.

He couldn’t even think any more on how disgusted the concept of that was before Roo had levitated the club out of the trolls hand and knocked it out.

Hermes finally found his words as McGonagall came rushing in, scolding the two girls. Hermes knew he owed them big time, and knew that if they got into trouble over helping him out they’d never talk to him, ever.

“It was my fault professor.” He said, surprised at how even his voice sounded. Hermes hadn’t broken any rules at the school, he wanted to do well, to be liked, especially by the professors, so it felt horrible to admit to breaking the rules, especially considering he hadn’t actually done anything. “I went looking for the troll. I’ve read about them. I thought I could handle it.” He said, not looking at Hattie and Roo and hoping they just went with it.

He lost Gryffindor five points, but some things were worth more than points, he thought, as he waited by the portrait hole for Hattie and Roo. He didn’t know exactly why he was waiting, maybe they wouldn’t want to talk to him anyway, that they did what they did because Roo felt responsible? Maybe they didn’t appreciate what he had said-

They appeared in the portrait hole, surprised to see him waiting. They all stood around for a moment, before they all came out with a ‘thanks’ and walking off, together, to get their plates.

Hermes still didn’t know how to make friends, exactly, but he did know that there were some things that happened that meant you had to be friends with the people it happened with. Knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll in the boys bathroom on Halloween certainly seemed to be one of them, and Hermes found himself with some real friends for the first time in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, it's been a long year, and its only March. Dissertation? Finished it mate. Coronavirus? Isolated mate. University? Shut down mate. Not that I'm promising to be more active, but I shall try! I've been stressed as hell because of everything, and my uni is trying to make me do a practical acting course over video chat. Not very practical, like, at all. So I still have a lot of uni stuff to be doing, but I'm kind of disassociating from it a tad, so this has become more of a focus for me.
> 
> Anyway! Feedback, always encouraged and appreciated, last chapters comments have stuck with me and I've been determined to finish this chapter for weeks! Love you guys, please let me know what you think <3


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